


Memory Sketch

by infinitegraces



Series: It Happened Anyway [4]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Tumblr: promptsinpanem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-06
Updated: 2015-04-06
Packaged: 2018-03-21 12:11:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3691809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/infinitegraces/pseuds/infinitegraces
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He just looked at her, shook his head, and made sure she never caught him drawing her again. (Written for Prompts in Panem, Round 7, Day 7)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Memory Sketch

**Author's Note:**

> Hope everyone that celebrates had a Happy Easter Sunday, and good luck to everyone catching up with PiP fics now that Day 7 has come. :)
> 
> (I helped hide eggs and then teased the older kids with locations before getting totally distracted by the plethora of dandelions that were in the pasture we hid the eggs in. All in all, a perfect day. And I successfully wrote for all seven days of this round of Prompts in Panem! Still planning one more installment for the end of this series, btw, but I have no timeline for when, just hoping for ASAP.)

_(Peeta Mellark, Age 15)_

Once, Katniss caught him drawing her on a piece of scratch paper during their math lesson.

“Is that me?” she asked him, eyeing the drawing. He couldn’t tell what she was thinking.

“Yeah,” he replied, still not sure he had gotten the slope of her nose just right.

“Don’t you think she’s too pretty to be me?”

Her response had surprised him at the time, but in retrospect it wasn’t that shocking. She never had seen herself the way everyone else did. He often heard other guys, from both ends of the district, commenting on how hot they thought she was.

He just looked at her, shook his head, and made sure she never caught him drawing her again.

************

He never stopped drawing her, of course. He had an entire sketchbook filled with pencil drawings of her, all from his memories of her over the past decade. Some of them also featured other people—her father, her mother, Prim, Madge, even one of her and Hawthorne one morning that he and Madge had met them in the meadow after a hunt. There were also a few that he had included himself in, including some he’d drawn in the middle of the night after waking from the dreams he had on occasion.

Probably his favorite, though, was the one he’d drawn of their very first day of school, with Katniss standing on the stool in that red plaid dress she’d worn and her hair in its twin braids. The drawing was his constant reminder of just how much of a goner he had been then, and how much more of a goner he was now that she was his closest friend.

He usually carried this sketchbook, as well as the one that contained his other drawings, in his old school bag with the rest of his things. They were leaving the school building one day when all of a sudden his bag tore, his books and other supplies spilling out of the bottom.

“Oh, geez,” he said, gathering his pencils from the ground first before anyone could accidentally step on them. When he turned to ask Katniss if she had any room in her own bag, she was kneeling on the ground with a very familiar book in her hands.

It must have opened to that page, the one with his favorite drawing, when it fell from his bag, but it being an accident didn’t really help his nerves about her seeing it. She hadn’t noticed him watching her, too enthralled by the scene he’d so flawlessly depicted, her fingers tracing the pencil strokes gently, almost as if they’d be erased if she pressed any harder.

“Do you remember that day, Katniss?” She looked up, startled, as if she’d forgotten he was even there. He quickly moved the rest of his books to the side, kneeling in front of her. “It was the first day of school, when we were five.”

“My dad walked me to school that day,” she said softly, looking back down at the drawing. “I was so excited to get to spend time with people my own age.” She smiled at the memory.

“My dad took me that day, too. That was the day I found out that he used to be friends with your mother, as a matter of fact. He was the one that told me.”

“I kind of figured that’s how you knew that,” she mused. “I couldn’t see your mother being very forthcoming about something like that. How did he tell you? My mother stayed home with Prim that morning, of course, so he couldn’t have seen her with me then…”

Aw, hell, how was he supposed to tell her this story? On the other hand, nothing he’d done had scared her off yet, so maybe it was time.

“Well, when I said he and your mother were friends…I might have understated that a little.” She shot him a confused look, so he continued on. “While we were lining up, he pointed you out to me saying, ‘See that little girl? I wanted to marry her mother, but she ran off with a coal miner.’ I couldn’t understand why, so when I asked him, he then told me it was because when your dad sang, even the birds stopped to listen.”

She nodded. “That’s true, they did. He must have taught me every song he knew, and any time we were in the woods, he would start to sing, and the mockingjays would just stop. His voice would be the only sound, and then they would start singing the song right back to him. It was always one of my favorite parts of going to the woods with him.” The soft tone of her voice left no room for doubt; she still missed her father, even after four years without him, but she could also remember him fondly. “So, the drawing? It’s from that day…”

“It's from later that day, yes, during the music assembly. The teacher asked if anyone knew the valley song, and you raised your hand before anyone else even had a chance. She put you up on that stool, you sang it for us, and then—I couldn’t help but notice that the birds stopped singing for you.“

“They did? I don’t remember that.”

“I remember everything about you, Katniss, so trust me when I say that the birds definitely stopped singing for you. They stopped singing, and then when you were done, I just knew…” He trailed off then, looking at her. She looked to be deep in thought, contemplating his spoken words as well as the unspoken ones he hadn’t said at the end.

“It took you almost seven years to actually say more than two words to me after that,” she said suddenly.

“I was a bit of a coward when I was younger, haven’t you realized that?” Peeta smiled at her, which she returned, closing the sketchbook and handing it back to him. They both stood, him handing her his pencils and picking up the rest of his things from the ground. She looked at him before speaking again.

“Peeta? Thanks for the memory.” She then surprised him by leaning up and pressing her lips to his cheek for a brief moment. “It’s really sweet of you,” she said, blushing. He knew he was also blushing as well, but as they walked toward the tree where Prim was talking to some classmates while waiting, he considered one thing.

Maybe he’d let her catch him drawing her again one day.


End file.
